


Walk Me Through It

by tj_teejay



Series: The *other* Sunshineverse(s) [6]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Biological Warfare, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Apocalypse, Blood, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Neurological Disorders, Post-Apocalypse, Sunshineverse, Survival, Terminal Illnesses, Whump, feral!Matt, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 07:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5531582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tj_teejay/pseuds/tj_teejay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people have friends who bring wine when they visit. Others have friends who bring floral sweater tourniquets, severed brachial arteries, and lots of blood to your doorstep. Guess which ones we’re talking about right here. (Plays in the same universe as MomentumDeferred's story <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4217547">“Sunshine”</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk Me Through It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MomentumDeferred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentumDeferred/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Sunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4217547) by [MomentumDeferred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentumDeferred/pseuds/MomentumDeferred). 



> **Author's Note:** The week before x-mas, I asked Ash if there was anything I could write for her as a Christmas present. This was her prompt: _matt coming home bleeding profusely and in near-shock from a super nasty wound in his arm that he can't explain because words, and foggy has to use the floral print turtleneck as a tourniquet so matt doesn't bleed out. he also needs an iv. matt is unhappy._
> 
> Merry Christmas, you evil maker of angsty whump!
> 
>  **Timeframe:** AU that takes place during the downtime in chapter 18.
> 
> +-+-+-+-+

They didn’t hear it at first, because the wind sometimes rattled the garage door when it blew in strong gusts like today. It had become one of those sounds you don’t even consciously realize anymore. But then Karen thought there was a strange regularity to it.

“Foggy, do you hear that?”

“Yeah. It’s the wind.”

“No, listen. It sounds like someone’s banging against the door downstairs. Could be Matt.” He was out on one of this runs again.

Foggy dismissed it. “Nah, he’d whistle, like you taught him.”

He would—if he could. Maybe he couldn’t. She was already on the way to the kitchen and down to the garage. Foggy followed.

And sure enough, it wasn’t the wind. She recognized it right away. It was Matt’s halting voice—muffled and strangled. He was calling their names, hammering against the door at the same time. Foggy was already hurriedly trying to get it open, but the damn thing just wouldn’t go up fast enough.

When it finally did, Matt tumbled inside, and there was blood. A lot of it. He was clutching his right arm with his shaking left hand, near the bicep. Foggy’s voice was barely a hiss. “Jesus Christ, Matt.”

They were both by his side immediately, steadying him on feet that didn’t seem to want to carry him any longer. The only sound Matt made was a pained, “Ow,” before he passed out. He would have sagged to the floor if she and Foggy weren’t still holding him up.

She carefully helped lower him to the ground upon Foggy’s instructions. And Foggy was already doing his medic thing, checking him over. First his head where a sizeable amount of the blood seemed to have come from. There were at least two lacerations on his forehead and temple that she could make out.

Then Foggy peeled away the lump of fabric on Matt’s arm. It was the purple floral print turtleneck sweater he had come to like. She remembered him saying something like, “A lot neck shirt.” Matt was such a fucking nerd sometimes. Not so much when he lay bleeding on their garage floor.

“Oh fuck,” she heard Foggy whisper and leaned closer.

“What, Foggy?”

“This,” Foggy pointed at the blood-soaked sweater that was wrapped tightly around Matt’s bicep. He’d used it as a tourniquet. It was dark red and glistened with moisture. Even Karen knew it was too much blood. Foggy only confirmed it. “This is bad. Can you help me get him upstairs? I need more light.”

“Yeah.”

They lugged the hundred-and-forty pound feral up the stairs. Karen had the clarity of mind to put one of their beach towels under him after they placed him on the futon. The shockingly pink one, because it was still halfway clean.

“I’ll be right back,” she told Foggy. “I’m gonna close the door.”

He just nodded and she tried to be quick. An injured Matt was one thing, but a pack of ferals or even aliens in their home? Yeah, not something she ever wanted to experience. The door closed with a rattle, and she hurried up the stairs and back to the futon. Foggy had his medical supplies out, was taking Matt’s blood pressure with the manual blood pressure kit he’d found God knows where.

“Shit,” Foggy hissed again. “Way too low. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

She looked at Matt. He was ghostly pale and still unconscious. Blood was seeping down the side of his face. She wasn’t sure what to do. “Where do you need me, Foggy?”

His eyes dashed around, and she could detect a hint of frantic panic there he quickly tried to hide. “Stop the bleeding,” he instructed her.

“His head or his arm?”

“Both.”

“Uh…” How was she supposed to do that? She only had two hands. The tourniquet was still around Matt’s arm. “Should I take this off?”

“No!” he shot at her, the panic definitely out in the open now. He quickly caught himself. “Just… I don’t know. Just—“

“It’s okay,” she tried to calm him. “I’ll take the head wounds, you look at the arm.”

He nodded, kneeling by Matt’s right arm. She put on gloves and ripped open two of the gauze packets, then pressed one pad each against the lacerations on Matt’s head, applying pressure like Foggy had taught her.

Turning her head, she watched Foggy. He loosened the sleeve of the sweater Matt had tied around the wound, and then he gasped as he peeled the garment away entirely.

Karen could see why. A large chunk of… something… was sticking right out of Matt’s upper arm. Metal or glass, she couldn’t quite tell. It was slick with blood, rivulets of it already running down Matt’s skin to drip onto the towel. Foggy was pressing the towel he’d grabbed against both sides of the sharp object.

“Jesus Christ,” he reiterated, this time even more horrified. That didn’t bode well.

She could see Foggy swallow. “I, uh… We need to get that out. But, uh, I think— I think it may have— Shit.”

“Foggy, what?”

“It could have hit the brachial artery. We pull it out, he might bleed to death. He’s already—” Foggy swallowed again. “He’s already in hypovolemic shock.”

“Is that why he’s unconscious?”

“Yeah.”

She let out a dry, hollow laugh. “Like that shit you see on TV all the time, huh? Pull it out and then, I don’t know, sew up the artery?”

“Yeah, except I don’t have an OR or—or a sterile field or any kind of surgical degree.”

Her question was simple, and the only one that had to be asked. “Can you do it?”

He closed his eyes, let out a heavy breath. “I don’t know.”

“You’ll have to.”

“Yeah, I know. Shit man. _Why_ , Matt? Why’d you have to go and get yourself almost killed again?”

Matt remained unresponsive, and Foggy got up. “I need to hang an IV first, get his volume up. Can you hold this?”

She let go of the gauze pads and took over the towel Foggy was holding, keeping the pressure on the wound. She could feel Matt’s pulse vibrating against the piece of shrapnel in his arm, sending tiny shocks of movement through it.

Foggy was quick with the IV, but it still took him two tries to find a vein. She knew Matt had terrible veins. Foggy kept saying it every time he hand to poke a needle into Matt’s arm. He didn’t mention it this time. It said a lot that they now had a bent nail in the wall where Foggy could hang the IV bag.

A few moments later, Foggy was back by her side. There was still so much blood, and it got more by the second. “I need more light,” Foggy said.

They also had a solution for this. They’d strapped a flashlight to a non-functioning desk lamp not too long ago. One of those you could bend in different directions. Karen hurried to find it and tried to position it for Foggy to do his thing.

He had peeled back the towel again. The sight hadn’t gotten any more reassuring. Mangled skin, tissue, and muscle—quite literally a bloody mess. Foggy’s hands hovered unsurely around the wound, and she knew he was panicking. She tried to make her voice calm.

“Foggy. Take a breath. Tell me what you’re planning to do. I can only help you if I know what you’re doing. We need to be a team on this.”

“Yeah,” he eked out. “Yeah. I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. I don’t how to do this.”

“It’s okay. You can do it. You’ve read all the books. You know the anatomy in there, where you need to go. Close your eyes for a moment. Just try to imagine it in your head.”

He complied, and she started preparing the sutures, all the things he’d need. It’d have to be the absorbable ones for this. She knew that much by now. They were purple.

She was almost done when he opened his eyes again, his expression determined. “Okay. I think I’ve got it.”

“Walk me through it.”

“We don’t have time for this.”

“Yes, if you want him to live, we do.”

Foggy felt for Matt’s pulse on his neck, his brow furrowing. He didn’t like the picture, she could see that, but he also knew she was right.

“It’s likely the brachial artery took a hit, it runs along his arm.” Foggy indicated its rough location with his index finger on the inside of his own arm. “Once I pull this out, it’s gonna leak blood. More blood. The bright red stuff. That’s arterial blood. I’m gonna have to find the artery and suture it, plug the hole, stop the bleeding.”

“Can we, I don’t know, clamp it or something?”

He let out a short, hollow laugh. “This isn’t TV medicine.”

“At least put a tourniquet back around his arm, stop the blood flow while you repair it.”

“Yeah,” he quickly agreed. “Yeah, that’s good. Let’s do that.”

For lack of better equipment, she unclasped Matt’s webbed belt and pulled it out of his pants. Foggy gave her a quick nod. She tied it around Matt’s upper arm, just below the shoulder joint.

“Tighter,” Foggy told her. She tried. It had to hurt. Thank fuck Matt wasn’t with it.

“Okay,” Foggy said again.

She held out the needle and sutures with one hand, a gauze pad in the other. “I’m ready.”

“I’m not,” Foggy muttered, but poked a finger into the wound anyway and started to pull the shard of metal out of Matt’s arm with the other hand. He let it fall onto the towel next to him and reached his hand back into the wound. Crimson blood was bubbling everywhere. Foggy hissed another, “Shit,” both hands now groping around in Matt’s ripped open arm.

She let him work in silence, confident he’d ask if he needed anything. He was still panicking, she could tell, but there was also a resolute concentration there. And then he placed the first suture, and another. Three in total, then he retracted his hands.

“Gauze,” he said, and it was a forced whisper more than a spoken word.

They packed the mangled mess of flesh and muscle with the stuff, and it soaked through quickly. Foggy peeled it away after a few seconds, let the wet lumps fall onto the towel next to the discarded piece of shrapnel. Miraculously, their makeshift surgical field stayed relatively dry. No more wells of blood oozing from nicked major blood vessels. She could now see the three purple stitches holding Matt’s artery together—neat and professional. Yeah, Foggy’d had a lot of practice.

“You think I can release the tourniquet?” she asked. Matt’s lower arm was already beginning to turn blue.

Foggy nodded. “Slowly.”

She did, bit by bit. They watched with baited breath. The blood vessels were pinking up. Foggy’s breath next to her was shaky as he sucked it in, but the sutures held, and there was no oozing. Matt’s fingers were turning from purple to red—slowly, steadily. Foggy had performed another fucking miracle.

She allowed herself a small smile. “It’s working.”

“Yeah.” Foggy sounded like a deflating tire, and she looked at him. There was something there that told her he might be about to cry. Or puke. Or pass out.

Her fingers quickly reached out to touch his arm, but she was still wearing the blood-soaked gloves, so she didn’t. “Foggy. Hey, Foggy. You did good. He’s gonna be okay. The bleeding stopped. You stopped it.”

He slowly turned his head to her. “ _We_ did.”

“Yes. Now come on, let’s finish this.”

He went to work again, and she helped as best as she could when he was cleaning out the wound with saline. He finished by sewing Matt’s skin together with practiced movements. She counted nine stitches.

The head wounds were next. Foggy sutured the one near the temple (four stitches) while Karen put butterfly bandages on the other. Patching up lacerations was pretty routine by now. Matt would still hate the stitches when he woke up.

They’d both tended to an injured Matt often enough by now that they were a pretty good team. She didn’t even need to be asked to wrapped a gauze bandage around Matt’s right bicep while Foggy checked the IV and took Matt’s blood pressure again. He did something with Matt’s fingernails, but she didn’t want to ask what it was. Foggy’s face clearly still betrayed his anxiousness.

“What’s his BP?” she asked. Some of this stuff was starting to make sense to her now. Second hand knowledge was a strange thing.

“Ninety over sixty.”

“That’s still pretty low.”

“Yeah. What he really needs is a blood transfusion.”

“The saline should help, right?”

“It’s kind of a stop-gap. I don’t know. I hope it’s enough.”

“It’s Matt. He’ll make it. He’s a tough little fucker. You know that.”

That actually made Foggy chuckle. “I’ll kill him if he doesn’t. I hope _he_ knows that.”

She found herself cupping Matt’s cheek in her hand, unsure how exactly that had happened. She slowly retracted her fingers. He was so cold and pale, and there was... God, everything was stained in blood. “I’m, uh... I’ll go get some water to clean him up.”

Washing caked blood off of Matt had, sadly, also become second nature by now. She’d done it a lot more often than she would have wanted, too often to keep count. It was always a sad affair, and even sadder when Matt was unconscious for it. But the truth was that she preferred it when he was.

By the time she and Foggy were done cleaning up around Matt, a heavy silence settled. This was always the part that she hated. Those quiet moments where she could practically feel the worry emanating off of Foggy in waves, the helplessness of not knowing how to make it lessen or go away. The feeling of being trapped in a revolving door of inertia and frustration and unease.

She stood unsurely a few feet to the side, watching as he fiddled with the little plastic wheel of the IV regulator, then settled heavily by Matt at the edge of the futon. She sat down next to him, because... well... he needed someone, too. They all did. He’d been there for her countless times, she could only repay the favor.

There were no words when she put her arm around his shoulder and waited. She could feel him stiffen at first, but then relax a little. He wasn’t crying, not this time, but he drew in a long, deep, heavy breath that he let out slowly through his nose. His voice was low when he said, “I can’t keep doing this, Karen. How many more times until we’re too late to save him?”

She didn’t know what to say to that, because she knew it would happen. Eventually. Hopefully not for a long time. “Let’s not think about that, okay? We _did_ save him this time. That’s all that matters.”

Foggy gently extricated himself from her touch and turned around to look at Matt, and she followed his gaze. He said, “I mean, look at him. Barely hanging on, half his blood volume spilled on the sidewalk somewhere in the street. How do we keep letting this happen?”

It was one of those moments where Foggy didn’t get it, or maybe conveniently kept forgetting it. “It’s not our place to keep him from doing anything. It’s who he is now, and I think you know that. He chose this, and he will _keep_ choosing this. But he will always come back to us, because we’re his family. He belongs with us, and we belong with him, whatever baggage attached.”

Foggy let out a wet chuckle. “It’s a _lot_ of baggage.”

“A whole truckload. But it has treasures. Lots of them. A _lot_ a lot.”

Foggy gave her a wan smile. “His messed up brain and that stupid aphasia, I can’t believe we’re already parroting him.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty amazing, though, don’t you think? Surviving the virus like he did, coming back from it, it’s kind of a miracle. I think we don’t see it often enough.”

“Oh, I do. Not when he’s like this, but I try to remind myself as often as I can.”

She let one of her hands rest on his thigh, squeezing it a little. “You’re a good friend, Foggy. The best.”

He smiled. “You’re not so bad either, you kn—“

“Hngh.”

It was Matt behind them, stirring and moaning. Foggy was crouching by his side immediately, a steadying hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, buddy, you’re injured. Don’t move around too much, okay?”

She came around to the other side, taking his shaking left hand. “Matt, we’re here.”

A sound tore from his throat, one of those half-groans, half-whines. He made a lot of sounds that no human could ever make. His next word was predictable. “Foggy.”

“Yes, I’m here. What do you need?”

“Hurts.”

“I know. Your arm, right?”

Matt struggled upright, but failed halfway. Foggy was trying to steady him. “Easy, easy, you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

He swayed carefully to the side, even in a sitting position. His breathing was fast. “Dizz.”

It was supposed to mean ‘dizzy’. Foggy confirmed it. “Yeah, blood loss, like I said. You might be dizzy for a while.”

“Thirsty.”

This was something Karen could address. She got him a mug of water from the purifier, helped him drink it because of the IV in his left arm and the injury on his other. He gulped it down despite her warning to drink slowly. She got him a second one. It also went down fast. Some of it dribbled down his beard. His body was struggling hard to keep up with all its demands.

“How?” he asked. He looked as if he was trying to take stock of the situation. She’d seen it a lot.

It was Foggy who answered. “How what?”

“How this?” He weakly lifted his right arm, aborting the movement almost immediately. Cause, shit yeah, it had to hurt like hell.

“I don’t know, Matt. You came banging on the garage door with a huge chunk of metal sticking out of your arm. I can’t tell you how that happened. What I _can_ tell you is that we had to stitch your artery back together to keep you from bleeding out. That’s why your arm hurts. Your head too, I bet. Do you have a concussion?”

He closed his eyes, that intense concentration written all over his face. His super senses still amazed the hell out of her. “Small.”

“A mild concussion?”

“Yes. No other, mm. Arm. No other. Not hurts.”

He was answering Foggy’s questions even before Foggy was asking them. One more sign that they’d been through this particular rodeo one too many times. And normally Foggy would be all over him to speak properly, but it wasn’t a surprise that he led it slide this time.

It was then that Matt frowned and tried to bend his left arm, pulling the IV line a little too taught. He stopped as soon as he realized it was causing pain. “Foggy, I don’t want this.”

“Yeah, I know. But that’s really important right now. It’s keeping you alive. You lost a lot of blood. Too much. That’s why you’re so dizzy. We need to keep your blood volume up, help your body make more of it to make up for what you lost. You need the fluids right now, Matt. I can’t take it off.”

Matt didn’t seem very happy with that. Just how much showed all over his face when he pulled once more at the IV line, as if he was trying to punish himself on purpose. Karen didn’t like watching him we he got like this.

She slid a little closer, touched his hand to stop him hurting himself. She made her voice soft—something that he’d taught her, that she wanted to give back to him. “Hey, Matt. It’s okay. It won’t be forever. You just need some rest, give your body time to heal. We’ll be here with you. I know you don’t like it, but it’s gonna be okay.”

“Not okay,” he grumbled.

Foggy looked like he was about to speak, and these were the kinds of conversations that so often ended up with Foggy letting his passive-aggressive anger lash out, and Matt guilt-tripping himself into another mope, and she vowed not to let it go there.

“Hey,” she addressed both of them. “Can we not do this right now?”

Foggy looked at her, confused. “Do what?”

“That thing that usually happens after this, where there’s subdued accusations and guilt-trips and just general suckiness and awkward silences for the rest of the day?”

“Subdued accusations?”

She tried not to let her emotions play into this—and when had it happened that she even realized that’s what they were? It took some effort to make her voice sound carefully neutral. “Please don’t say anything that will make Matt feel bad or guilty or, I don’t know, inadequate. He feels bad enough. I get that you’re angry, Foggy. And scared. But we’re all okay. Or gonna be. Let’s try to do better next time. Focus on that.

“You too, Matt. This sucks, and it will keep sucking for a few days, but it is what it is. We can’t change it, and you wishing it were different won’t change it either. You’re pretty amazing, but you’re not superhuman. You need to give me and Foggy some time to be sure you’re going to be okay. Give _yourself_ time. You can’t do it all alone, all the time.”

She let out a heavy breath. That hadn’t been what she’d wanted to say at all. Where did that rant come from? It had rendered both Matt and Foggy speechless. She added a quick, “I’m sorry.”

But then Foggy looked at her. “No, you’re right. We keep doing this, and maybe we shouldn’t.”

He fell silent, and she looked at Matt. He tilted his chin in her direction. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

She shook her head. “Please don’t apologize. Let us take care of you, let yourself heal in your own time. Matt, you... you push yourself too hard sometimes.”

“What you—what do you need me do?” he asked in a small voice.

“Get some rest. Let Foggy do his thing. He’ll know what to do, and you need to let him. Try your hardest. Talk to us. Do you think you can do that?”

A certain kind of determination flitted across his face and settled in the edges of his mouth. “I tr— I will try, Karen.”

She took his left hand and squeezed it. “That’s all I can ask for.”

Foggy looked hesitant when she met his gaze, then he angled it at Matt. “I know you hate the IV, Matt, but I really can’t take it out yet. Would it be better if I put it somewhere else? Your hand? Your neck? Your thigh, even?”

Matt seemed to consider that for a moment. “I don’t know,” was his noncommittal answer.

Foggy sighed. “Shall we leave it like that, and you tell me if you want me to change it?”

“Yes, Foggy.”

Karen smiled faintly. It was a start.

“What else can I do to make this easier for you, buddy?”

“I... mm. You not put, mm. Not. I don’t know word.”

“Describe it, Matty.”

“Arm hurts, stitches, you put over.”

“The bandage?”

“Yes. No. Not this. You, later, not put... mm, it itches a lot.”

Karen wasn’t sure what he meant. Foggy didn’t look as if he did either at first, but then he figured it out. “You mean the adhesive dressing? The stuff we stick on your skin?”

“Yes, sticks. It itches. I don’t like it.”

Foggy gave a quick nod. “Okay, fair enough. Yeah, we can work around that. Is the bandage okay for now? We need to cover the stitches to make sure it doesn’t become infected. That’s im—”

“—portant,” Matt finished for Foggy. “Yes, I know. Antibiotibs, you give?”

Was Matt actively asking for them? No, that couldn’t be. Had _she_ done this? How had she done this? Foggy’s astonished, questioning expression was asking the same thing. To Matt, he said, “You want antibiotics?”

“I don’t need?”

Foggy hummed. “I’d feel better if you took some. That piece of metal in your arm, who knows where that’s been. Yes, actually I think you should definitely take some.”

“I will take,” Matt confirmed. He then swallowed the pill without protest that Foggy got for him.

Karen watched them. Foggy had a big smile on his face, and she loved seeing it. Yes, she had done this. That was something to be proud of.

They both coaxed Matt into getting some more rest, and it took a mere five minutes of Foggy’s Matt-Magic—which is what she liked to call it in her head, because she had no idea how he could push Matt’s buttons the way he did—for him to fall asleep.

There was still a heap of disgusting, blood-soaked trash on the coffee table, so she gathered it all up in the beach towel and took it to the kitchen. Most of it would have to be thrown out.

Foggy came to join her a minute later, looking spent and more tired than she had seen him in a long time. Something in her chest did that weird thing she still hadn’t really figured out what it was and what to do with it.

When she picked the shard of metal out of the heap and put it to the side, Foggy looked at her skeptically. Before he could ask, she explained, “I don’t know, he might want to keep it.”

There was exasperation in his voice. “Please. We’re not going to start a collection of ‘things I’ve dug out of my best half-feral friend’. He gives me enough heart attacks as it is, I really don’t need the reminders.”

She gave him a look. “You know, it isn’t always about what _you_ want, Foggy. You’re usually pretty good about asking him permission and all that stuff, but sometimes you... you come across a little patronizing.”

He was taken aback. “Patronizing? Me?”

Shit, maybe she’d gone too far this time. “Yeah, I mean, not in an overbearing way or anything. Just... I don’t know. Sometimes you make decisions that suit _you_ , but not him.”

“As in...?”

“Other than this?” She lifted the shrapnel. “I don’t know. Telling him to stop doing things because you think they’re dangerous. Or idiotic. Or in bad taste.”

“Well, usually they _are_!”

“To _you_. Not to him.”

“Yeah, but he’s...”

“Brain-damaged?”

He sighed. “Yeah. No. You know what I mean. It’s that thing where his brain was wiped of everything that mattered. I’m just trying to teach him to get that back, you know?”

She made her voice gentle. “I know, Foggy. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Way back when, you kept insisting he’s still Matt. That I shouldn’t treat him like an imbecile. Or, you know... a child, or whatever. In a way, it’s like raising a teenager. They grow up to be adults. At some point you need to let them take flight and make their own mistakes. That’s how they learn to make better decisions.”

Foggy’s voice flared. “That’s also how Matt gets himself killed. Wasn’t today enough of a reminder of that?”

She gave a quick shrug. “Yeah. I... I don’t know, I just... God, we need a fucking rulebook.”

He chuckled. “We do. Let me know when you find one.”

She was cleaning the metal shard with some of the water, trying to figure out where it might have come from. It was hard to tell. “Should we ask him what happened, what this used to be when it was still intact?”

“We can try.”

And they did when Matt was awake and more lucid. He couldn’t really tell them to any satisfying degree, because of the many holes in his Swiss-cheesed vocabulary, and in the end they decided it didn’t matter.

Karen asked him if he wanted to keep the piece of shrapnel. He felt it for a long time, slowly and carefully because his right arm wasn’t truly functional, and his left pretty useless anyway. He said yes.

She offered to file off and round all the sharp edges. It went into his already sizeable tactile collection afterwards. To Matt it would forever be another palpable reminder of a mistake not to be repeated, and that time where Foggy and Karen saved his little half-feral ass. Again.

+-+-+-+-+


End file.
